Formica counter, his back to the brick wall of an adjoining building. A girl leaned up against the wall, arms crossed behind her back, purse dangling from her shoulder, talking to B-Bob.
“She’s got some train wreck going on at her place,” the girl was saying as we approached. I recognized her: Tara Cohn. I’d gone to school with her. She’d hung out with a different crowd, but she’d been okay. Always chewing gum.
“Freeze,” Cortez said. He was holding a gun. Tara shrieked; B-Bob nearly fell back on his stool. Cortez lunged, grabbed the automatic pistol sitting on the counter, stuffed it in his belt.
“Take it, take it,” B-Bob said, hands in the air. “We got no problem.”
“Yeah, we do got a problem,” Cortez said to B-Bob. “Put everything on the table. Now.”
Hands shaking, B-Bob pulled piles of baggies and bright-colored pills out from behind the counter, laid them on top. Then he put his hands back up.
Cortez pushed the drugs into a pile, pulled a little can of lighter fluid from his pocket and squirted it over the drugs.
B-Bob stared at the pile, wide-eyed. “What the fuck? You just going to flunk them all?”
“I ain’t no thief,” Cortez said, fishing a matchbook from his pants. “Where’s the bamboo? I want that too.”
“What bamboo? I don’t got no bamboo.”
“Don’t bullshit me,” Cortez said.
“I just hold it to pass on to somebody once in a while. I don’t got none right now.”
“Well, your fucking bamboo cut up the wrong guy’s home,” Cortez said. “All you bastards bleeding the block, wrecking this city. This is my home, god dammit.”
“I don’t sell to kids,” B-Bob said. “I don’t do no harm, I just help people escape for a little while. It’s the only vacation most people around here can afford.”
I heard a metal click. “Drop the gun.” It was a man’s voice, behind Cortez.
Cortez put his hands up slowly, turned halfway around. Before I understood what was happening, he planted a side kick under the guy’s armpit, followed by a spinning hook kick that caught the guy square in the jaw and dropped him. He was so fast—I couldn’t believe it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tara fumbling in her purse.
“Look out!” I shouted at Cortez. He spun to face Tara as she pointed the pistol at him, clutching it in both hands.
“No!” Cortez shouted as she drew a bead. “Put it
Cortez shot her twice in the stomach.
She grunted, fell back into a sitting position, stared down in disbelief at the blood, which looked black in the dim streetlight.
She looked up at Cortez. “You suck.”
“I’m sorry,” Cortez said. “Why didn’t you listen? I didn’t want to hurt nobody.”
I was swimming in a dream world. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening.
“Bobby,” Tara whimpered. “I need help. It’s starting to hurt.” She gagged; blood leaked out of her mouth and down her chin. Bobby squatted beside her, drew her head to his chest.
Cortez grabbed me by the arm and yanked. I stumbled, almost fell. “Run,” he said. I let him jerk me along as I looked back at the seemingly frozen scene of B-Bob holding Tara to his chest, until the doorway flashed by around me, and the scene was snuffed out.
“Run!” Cortez shouted. I ran. I’ve never run so fast.
I finally stopped not because I was out of breath but because I couldn’t see where I was going through the tears. I stopped in a deserted alley, pushed my face against the bricks. Cortez leaned up against the wall across from me, then slid to a sitting position, his head dangling between his knees. He sniffed.
What had we done? We’d shot Tara Cohn, who used to sit in front of me in biology class. For what? For what reason? She’d told Cortez he sucked, like he’d taken her last French fry or something.
“She might be okay, we don’t know,” Cortez said, his voice thick from crying.
“She’s not okay,” I said.
I turned and stared out of the alley, into a square a block away, at the Spanish moss dripping from the branches of the oaks, the moonlight peering through. “I think I need to be alone for a while. Will you be okay?”
Cortez nodded. “I’m sorry I got you into this. I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” I said. I couldn’t look at him. I walked off.
I walked until daylight. I didn’t want to go home and have to explain what had happened when Colin and Jeannie saw my face. By morning I’d stopped crying, but I still felt so twisted inside that it was hard to take a full breath.
I found myself thinking about the other killing, when we’d stabbed the men who were trying to rape Ange. That had been a more understandable killing—a noble murder, almost. We hadn’t felt noble, and I still had occasional nightmares about it, but I never regretted it. I would regret Tara’s death every day for the rest of my life.
I wandered into Madison Square. The primitive tribe was breaking camp. The girl waved when she saw me. I realized I hadn’t even asked her name, like she was an animal not worth that courtesy. This morning she looked strong and certain, like she was the one who had it right, who knew how to live, and I was the clueless one. “I don’t know your name,” I said, trying to smile.
“Bird,” she said.
“Jasper.”
“I like you,” she said, staring at the ground, looking like a fifteen-year-old with a crush. It occurred to me that I didn’t know she
“I like you, too,” I said. I blinked tears away.
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“I can’t,” I said. She nodded, let her shoulders drop in disappointment.
It occurred to me that I could go if I wanted to. I imagined myself in the bamboo, hunting for herbs and roots, sleeping under the stars, maybe not sleeping alone. That would be nice. Why couldn’t I just go for a week or two, maybe a month? No guns, no viruses, nothing to think about. Noble savagery. The urge to flee, to get out of the city, was overwhelming.
“Could I come for a little while, maybe a few weeks? Would that be all right? I can’t come for good.” I didn’t understand these people’s culture, and didn’t want to mistakenly give her the impression we were getting married or something.
She shrugged. “Sure.”
“Would they let me?”
“Would who let you?” Bird asked.
“Your… people. Who would I ask?”
Bird shrugged, squinted. “Why would you ask anybody?”
No one was in charge. What a refreshing concept.
Two naked kids ran between us, giggling, one chasing the other.
“I’d like to come with you for a while,” I said. Bird squealed with excitement, jumped up and down.
“I need to go get some things. I’ll meet you back here?”
She pointed at the ground. “Right here.”
“Right.” I jogged out of the park, up Whitaker to East Jones.
Colin was on the roof, working in the garden. I told him I was going on an extended herb excursion with the tribe in the square, that I might be gone for a few weeks. I’d done a few overnight jaunts, so he didn’t think too much of it. I didn’t tell him about Tara Cohn. I knew I would eventually, but it was too fresh right now, it would take too much out of me, and I was so tired. My eyelids burned from dirt and tears and lack of sleep.
I packed some toiletries, a change of clothes, two wild herb books. I threw on my collection vest, its pockets like a dozen little drawers in a curio cabinet, and headed to the square.
Back in the square Bird grabbed my arm, led me to a little pile: a cooking pot, bow and arrow, machete, a
